DC DARK: Superman
by Dan Bivens
Summary: Now that we've seen a Batman in a much Darker Reality than we all knew, what would the Man of Steel become in a far darker Metropolis without the love of Lois Lane to mediate his mental ideal of Justice?
1. Chapter 1

**DC DARK: SUPERMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 1

For the first few years, after arriving in Metropolis as a mild-mannered man destined to assume not only a role as a peerless reporter for The Daily Planet, but a true superhero savior of that megalithic monument to ultra urbanity.

Superman.

He was the supreme rescuer for far more than tens of millions of Metropolitans. His singular super-powers, which included, of course, super-speed and personal flight, took him around the world.

So it would've remained had that monstrous moment, so tragic and terrible, not taken place...

Even though the Man of Steel could streak at a speed, in space where there would be no air resistance, of near-light velocities, while flying through Earth's atmosphere at multi-Mach speeds approaching twenty times the speed-of-sound, such would still prove too slow.

Especially when it came to saving...her.

Lois Lane, always the loose cannon when it came to throwing unquestioned caution to the always whimsical wind in order to report on the most impossible situations taking place in the immensity of Metropolis, would, once again, lay her illustrious life on the line.

Lex Luthor had, yet again, gained the upper hand over humanity as a whole when his limitless billions, via LexCorp-controlled banks and businesses, brought a "warsuit" into true existence. Something supposedly designed to afford fantastic protection to the populace of not only Metropolis, but the whole of the planet.

It was a lie and Lois could provide proof.

"It's time, Professor," proudly proclaimed Lex to one of several ex-S.T.A.R. scientists essentially stolen via the promise of many millions of tax-free fees paid in order to work solely, and secretly, for the bald billionaire. "The warsuit you promised me last year has, at long last, come to material fruition."

"Yes, Mr. Luthor," Professor Emil Hamilton told his hairless employer with a pride bordering on absolute insanity solely his own. "I call it 'Ruin'. I was discouraged from working on it at S.T.A.R. Labs. But I always knew that it could be constructed and, then..."

"Professor!" snappishly said Lex in order to force the scientist back to the supremely important project, before riding the temporary gantry elevator up two whole stories, so Lex Luthor could become much more than a mere man.

And his first order of business after activating said warsuit was...

Brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaattttttttaaaaaaaaaaaaa-brrrtttt!

"Noo--!"

The bullet-riddled Professor lay at the metallic feet of the massive man-controlled contraption that, secretly, Emil Hamilton had always planned to put to use under his own physio-mental manipulative power.

Lex Luthor, clearly, had other ideas.

Unfortunately for Lois Lane, having bluffed and bribed her way past LexCorp Security, she had not made her way to seeming safety before found out by Lex in his towering warsuit.

Now, in this Darker Reality, Lex no longer harbored even a hint of lingering love for the lady reporter who pined so for Superman. Thus it was easier by far for him to do to her what he had just done to Professor Emil Hamilton.

Brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaattttttttaaaaaaaaaaaaa-brrrtttt! Brrrttt!

"You chose your singular Destiny of Death when you chose Superman over me, Ms. Lane," lauded Lex from the veritable invulnerability surrounding his seated position within the head of the mass of metal. "You shall soon be joined by millions more...until the entirety of humanity names me their Supreme Master. Even that super-simpleton shall bow down...once exposed to the stockpile of Green Kryptonite within one of dozens of built-in antipersonnel weaponry of my one-of-a-kind warsuit. Yes."

Lumbering like the mechanical monster it was, the warsuit stepped past the blood-soaked, bullet-torn, lifeless Lois Lane lying on the floor of this special engineering section of LexCorp in the very heart of Metropolis. Murdered much more emotionally than had happened with the Professor.

And all while Superman had left his ville suprême in order to rescue hundreds of thousands from a freak flash flood in an impossibly poor third-world locality whose name was unknown to the so-called civilized sovereignties of planet Earth.

Needless to say, the unsurpassed sadness and unbridled rage brought to the forefront of the Man of Steel's soul was far greater than he would've endured had Lois Lane lived as she still did in a far brighter Reality.

"Luthorrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

That super-shout shattered windows for many miles around as a torrent of tears surrendered to a desire for Instant Justice for the love of his dual life.

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**DC DARK: SUPERMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 2

Having used powerful propulsive rockets situated to either side of the massive metal warsuit, Lex Luthor had overflown the vaster sections of downtown Metropolis in order to land amidst panicking people to take on, first, the Metropolitan police. Then, the local National Guard.

But, mostly, at the moment, the Special Crimes Unit headed up by SCU Agent Dan "Terrible" Turpin and SCU Agent Margaret "Maggie" Sawyer.

"All right, boys and girls!" clamorously urged Agent Turpin as he and Agent Sawyer wielded super-powerful weapons able to produce particle beams capable of obliterating buildings in a single second. "Let's take the fight outta that big bastard! Fire at will!"

Resisting the sarcastic desire to say something like, "Which one is Will?", Maggie made it plain that she was just as tough as Turpin or anyone else sworn in as an Agent of the Special Crimes Unit. Unleashing hell like Dan "Terrible" Turpin or any other Agent currently skilled at handling a portable particle-beam blaster.

It was just then that Lex Luthor, standing tall in the middle of a discombobulated block, discovered just how invulnerable his warsuit was.

"Your destructive energy weapons are like 'pop-guns' to me," Lex's auto-amplified voice stated so tyrannically as several powerful particle beams impacted more-or-less harmlessly against the warsuit's super-dense exterior. "Allow me to RSVP with weapons of my own. Haaa, hahahaha!"

"Take cover!" shouted Sawyer to all uniformed officers/soldiers on the scene as well as fellow SCU Agents.

Even as, from one enormous metallic arm, several surface-to-air missiles were sent, instead, straight down toward the already shattered street's surface...

Baa-BOOOOOOOMMMMMM! BOOOMMMMM! Ba-daaa-BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

As a hail of obliterated asphalt and decimated cement smashed down onto parked cars and idling police cruisers, some of it gravely injuring, or straight-out smashing, a number of not only police officers and National Guardsmen, but SCU Agents as well.

Fortunately, SCU Agents Sawyer and Turpin were relatively unharmed.

"Give 'im everything you've got!" shouted Maggie as the survivors of that first explosive assault by Lex's warsuit retaliated with whatever was left. From Glock pistols to pump shotguns to M-16s to particle-beam blasters.

Forcing Lex into a defensive posture rather than the former offensive since he'd sent super high-caliber bullets by the thousands and some smaller missiles to wantonly destroy large sections of skyscrapers surrounding this makeshift War Zone...

"I am invincible!" railed, via voice amplification from said warsuit, still resisting the totality of destructive potential sent at him with such courageous resolve. "No one can stop me from bringing, first, Metropolis and, then, the world to its collective knees! No one!"

"Does that include me, murderer?"

That super-shouted query came from the fraught with near-insane anger Superman even as he landed several super-punches against the near-impervious warsuit. Sending it stumbling back to crash down, temporarily, even as those standing at street level...

"Retreat!"

...sought solace several hundred yards further away from what would quickly become the site of a super-battle between two titans: one a mountain of man-made and man-manipulated metal; the other a staggeringly strong Strange Visitor from Another Planet.

The Man of Mechanized Metal against the Man of Steel.

"Get 'im, Superman!" shouted Sawyer, representative of such expectations overpowering the men and women of the Metropolis PD, National Guard, and Special Crimes Unit. "Yeah!"

But even the Man of Steel's super-hearing detected not the rampant roar of cheers rising from not only officials but ordinary citizens standing at a safe distance from the fervid fight.

His blood boiled too hotly with hatred and rage to hear or see anything other than his oppressive objective: Lex Luthor in his warsuit.

No matter what weapon was put to use by the bald billionaire inside the nigh-indestructible creation of a killed-by-Lex Luthor Professor Emil Hamilton, it held no hope of downing the undaunted Superman still exercising graviton production/distribution to remain majestically aloft.

His Fists of Steel slamming mercilessly, repeatedly, against the exterior of the warsuit with such force that the formation of massive dents denoted that it was not nearly as "super" as the Last Son of Krypton.

"Dammit," swore Lex from his secured-via-restraints position inside the head area of the embattled battle-suit. Such swiftly caused the hairless heir to more than one fortune first begun by a long-gone, definitely dead, father called Lionel Luthor. "Time to turn this around...and kill this Kryptonian...with Kryptonite. Hahahahahaha!"

Before the thoroughly enraged Superman could consider such a possibility, one massive arm of metal suddenly unleashed a secretively placed, encased in lead, green-glowing, super-sharp missile...

"Aaaaggggg!"

...which impaled the Man of Steel straight through the right side of his muscularly massive chest. Though not enough to instantly kill, as it would have had it been the left side wherein a humanoid super-heart beat so bravely...

"Uhhhhnnnnnnn..."

"Yes! Haaa, hahahaha!"

"Superman...!"

He tumbled straight to the shattered street to lie very close to Death's Door. Missile of Green Kryptonite still stuck several agonizing inches into the normally impenetrable pecs so singular to the man wearing blue-red with instantly understood "S" shield stretched so tautly over his torso.

His dark red blood, so human in appearance, though it flowed from the Last Son of Krypton, staining most of said super-suit as well as pooling below his body.

It certainly seemed that Superman was well on his way to a very mortal demise. So much so, that Lex, in his warsuit, simply lumbered away in order to once again engage the police, National Guardsmen, and SCU Agents. Before, finally, forcing surrender from Metropolis proper.

So he could, incontrovertibly, rocket away to do the same with Gotham City, New York City, Washington D.C., and, inevitably, every major municipality of America and, at long last, the whole world.

What would the world do without a Superman to save them?

Such suffused Superman's mind with similar considerations as his blurred-by-Kryptonite poisoning vision watched a warsuit-controlled Lex Luthor deliver Death to those still-alive individuals left with weapons powerful enough to desperately defend the defenseless.

Until now.

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**DC DARK: SUPERMAN**

by: Dan Bivens

Chapter 3/Conclusion

"No," weakly warbled the stricken Superman, green-glowing Kryptonite rocket still stuck into the right side of his massively muscular chest. "No."

Before the bleeding-out Man of Steel was a warsuit, with Lex Luthor still inside, literally killing all the remaining uniformed police officers as well as the helmeted National Guardsmen and even the particle-beam blaster clutching Special Crimes Unit.

Including, lamentably, SCU Agent Sawyer and Turpin. Just two of the few whom had developed a bond with Superman due to their display of bravery under even extreme circumstances. It was almost as emotionally agonizing as seeing a bullet-riddled and dead Lois Lane. Almost.

"No!"

Exerting a sudden surge of super-determination, the Man of Steel forced himself to grasp the protruding-out end of the Green Kryptonite missile and, with extreme strain and torturous pain far greater than the average Human might manage to master...

"Eeeeeeeeeee-YIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—"

...Superman shakily pulled on the impaled-into-pecs green-glowing missile from damaged muscle and ripped-open skin covered via blood-soaked blue cloth...

"IIIIIIIIIII...will not..."

...until, at last, it cleared said wound so that Superman could, in turn, hurl it with what little super-strength remained straight up until it soared swiftly out of Earth's atmospheric envelope...

"...let Lex...win!"

No longer exposed to such strength-sapping, life-draining Green Kryptonite, Superman's severely damaged musculature almost instantly resealed and healed. Only the torn, tattered, and blood-darkened super-suit was left as silent testimony as to what Lex Luthor's warsuit had done to the Last Son of Krypton.

"Not now! Not ever! AAAARRRRRRRRRR!"

Even as Lex's warsuit, still destroying surrounding buildings as bloodied bodies began to litter the streets shattered so easily by the multi-ton mass of mechanized metal...

"What the...?"

...the bald billionaire caused the warsuit to slowly turn to see Superman streaking at near-Mach velocities straight for him with both bombastic fists stiffly held directly before the enraged Man of Steel...

"Uh...?"

Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-THAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

Having proved much more powerful than the warsuit was indestructible, not only did Superman ostensibly obliterate the battle-bot, but, by the time he tore Lex Luthor from its interior...

"N-no, p-please, Superman," pleaded Lex as the Last Son of Krypton clung to his nemesis' expensive suit's collar via a single super-hand while the other formed a trembling-with-rage super-fist. "I—I give up!"

"Sorry, Lex," Superman snarled more angrily and more insanely than ever before, "not taking prisoners anymore."

"Noo—!"

First, Superman ripped out the still-beating heart of a terrified Lex Luthor, then, after allowing him to witness such, used blistering laser-beam tight heat vision to finish off his greatest ever adversary...

"YEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"

As a scorched-beyond-recognition lump of flesh was dropped dead to the broken roadway, and as surviving citizens slowly stepped closer to see the unspeakable act accomplished so cold-bloodedly by the Man of Steel...

"From now on," loudly proclaimed Superman to all within hearing range as far away as six city streets, "I shall stand as Ultimate Master of all humanity! Not just in Metropolis! There shall be no more crime! No more war! No governmental bodies except those I allow to exist and remain answerable to me! From this point on...Superman shall save Man from Himself!"

Streaking skyward far too fast to see with Human eyes, those standing about a still-destroyed street in one of the largest cities in existence on the East Coast of the continental United States...

"What's goin' on?"

"What does Superman mean?"

"Has he lost his mind?"

"Will he really 'rule' over everyone?"

Such shaky questions would be answered as the Man of Steel swiftly, after changing into a second super-suit and discarding the one damaged and bloodied by his battle with the now-dead Lex Luthor, proceeded to implement his super-promise.

Within a single, solitary day...24 mere hours!...not only the largest cities on both East and West Coast were forced to submit to Superman, but every politically important nation as well.

Not just such as England or Russia or China...but the embattled Middle East. Culminating with the unbelievably brutal public punishment/death of any Superman considered as a continued threat to humanity as a whole such as Lex Luthor had previously proved.

Furthermore, following that single whole day of undaunted super-destruction/death delivered at super-Mach speeds leaving terrified former terrorists broken, bleeding, and blistered by heat vision. While the billions of diverse individuals not an immediate menace to the rest were forced under the unseen yoke of complete capitulation to a Superman-cum-Super-dictator...

...every single flag had been promptly replaced via "S"-shield dominated mastheads that made it scarily clear that all were now part of a United Earth of Superman!

And God help anyone foolish enough to stand against the Man of Steel's vice-like conventionality.

Even those others professing some sort of superhero/super-villain status.

Especially them.

END?


End file.
